For the last several weeks, this book and I have become companions in our journey through our advanced memoir workshop.

Like any anthology there were some sections that influenced or stood out more than others and for me my inspiration came from the introduction, Jill Ker Conway, Annie Dillard, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The way our class was set up was that we'd read an excerpt from the memoir itself, then we'd read the commentary on how the author came to write his/her memoir, and discuss. When broken down like this it made much more sense then say if I just picked up this book and started reading.

I learned a lot about the craft of memoir and hope to take the suggestions from the authors I enjoyed to heart and try to work more craft into my own memoir writing, thus taking it to the next level, hopefully. Keeping fingers crossed.